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Tag Archives: dean of innovation

Disrupt to Innovate

If these words come to your mind when you think about brainstorming and innovation, you’ll want to pay close attention.

Because it’s about not getting along, about disruption, about disagreement, and about contrasting perspectives. That’s what makes innovation happen.

In The Innovation Code: The Creative Power of Constructive Conflict, Jeff DeGraff and Staney DeGraff introduce a framework to explain how different kinds of leaders can create constructive conflict in an organization. Staney DeGraff is the CEO of Innovatrium Institute for Innovation. And Jeff DeGraff is known as the Dean of Innovation, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and a friend of mine for many years. I recently spoke to Jeff about his latest book.

Many people think that conflict and in-fighting must be solved before you can innovate, but you teach that it’s a healthy part of the process. Why is discord a good thing?

Innovation is simply a form of useful novelty. It’s the opposite of standardization. Positive tension is required to generate the energy required to create unique ideas. Apathy is the death of innovation, not conflict. So, to make innovation happen, you need to have divergent worldviews – points of departure. This creates new connections and forces ideas to morph into ever more potent forms. Take a good look at the most creative civilizations throughout history, and you will find they sit at the crossroads where a variety of people, and their ideas, meet both geographically and culturally: Athens, Hangzhou, Vienna, or New York. The same is true for teams and partners: Anthony and Stanton, Lennon and McCartney, or Shaq and Kobe. Every strength brings a weakness, and we need the “other” to push us forward and to overcome our own shortcomings. The key is to keep these conflicts constructive and focused on ideas, not personalities.

4 Approaches to Innovation

Why Teams Get Stuck

Jeff DeGraff is known as the Dean of Innovation. He’s a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and he has worked with some of the biggest global corporations ranging from Apple to GE to Coca-Cola.

I have personally called Jeff to help brainstorm issues and help jumpstart creativity. One of the many things I learned from Jeff was that innovation does not happen in the solitude of a eureka moment. It happens more often in teams.

So, what happens when a team gets stuck? I asked the Dean of Innovation to share his thoughts on why teams get stuck and what to do about it.

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“Innovation is created as a result of constructive conflict.” -Jeff DeGraff

3 Common Reasons Teams Get Stuck

Organizations and teams alike get stuck for a wide variety of reasons, but there are three that are most common: 1). They have chosen the wrong people to lead the way 2). They spend too long in the planning cycle, and 3). They miss the key handoffs and get out of sequence.

Let’s take a look at how to resolve these issues:

1.They have chosen the wrong people to lead the way.

Innovation project teams are like baseball teams. You need lots of different players to play different positions at different times. Start by tinkering with your lineup. Move folks around. Trade for better players and don’t be afraid to cut some players. Innovation teams are often led by command and control project leaders who have spent their careers eliminating variation; not creating it. Make the tough decision to move them along. Watch the movie Moneyball a few times, and you will get the point.

Are there ways to structure brainstorming to enhance the creative process?

Is it possible to learn how to innovate and create?

Make Stone Soup

If you study innovation, creativity and success, you will likely know my friend Jeff DeGraff. I first met him when I was running a business in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Someone on my team introduced me to the “Dean of Innovation” when we were struggling with a problem. Dr. DeGraff is a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He has worked with some of the biggest global corporations including Apple, Visa, GE, Coca-Cola, and Johnson & Johnson.

Misconceptions About Innovation

Most of us think of innovation and think of a brilliant inventor, solitarily working when Eureka! Bam! Innovation strikes! You say most innovation doesn’t happen in that manner but, instead, happens in teams. Tell us more about that.

Any other common misconceptions about innovation?

Most people have a very limited concept of innovation. They think it’s a gadget or an electric powered vehicle. But these technological inventions are the very end of the innovation chain. What makes your smart phone light and compact has more do with breakthroughs in material science than it does creative design thinking. More so, innovations are often services or integrated solutions such as Google’s business model. Innovation is by definition a type of deviance from the norm, and therefore what makes an innovation is constantly morphing and progressing.

Conversely, the biggest truth that people miss is that innovation is the only value proposition that happens in the future for which we have no data now. You must feel your way through the ambiguity and accelerate the unavoidable failure cycle. That’s how successful inventors, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists do it. Excessive planning is the number one form of resistance when trying to make innovation happen. You have to take multiple shots on goal.

Most importantly, innovation is not produced through alignment. It is created as a result of constructive conflict. Enroll some deep and diverse domain experts and encourage some polite pushing and shoving, and you will be astounded by the hybrid solutions they create.

CREATE, COMPETE, CONTROL, COLLABORATE

Make innovation a study and you inevitably will run into one name: Jeff DeGraff. Dr. DeGraff is a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He’s been called the Dean of Innovation. Before moving to Nashville, I lived in Ann Arbor and had the opportunity to meet him and see him in action. Jeff has worked with some of the biggest global corporations including Apple, Visa, GE, Coca-Cola, and Johnson & Johnson.

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Jeff when I visited the University of Michigan. He has created an innovation laboratory called the Innovatrium.